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A lesson of the 2016 campaign was that growing numbers of Americans are fed up with three decades of neoliberal policies that have fabulously enriched the top tier of Americans and debased a huge majority of the citizenry. The population has likewise grown tired of the elite’s senseless wars to expand their own interests, which these insiders try to conflate with the entire country’s interests.

America’s bipartisan rulers are threatened by popular discontent from both left and right. They were alarmed by the Bernie Sanders insurgency and by Donald Trump’s victory, even if Trump is now betraying the discontented masses who voted for him by advancing tax and health insurance plans designed to further crush them and benefit the wealthy.
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He is obviously not a Trump fan but his criticism of both sides sounds pretty accurate.

I’ve pitched numerous news stories critical of U.S. foreign policy to a major American newspaper that were rejected or changed in the editorial process. One example is the declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document of August 2012 that accurately predicted the rise of the Islamic State two years later.

The document, which I confirmed with a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. and its Turkish, European and Gulf Arab allies, were supporting the establishment of a Salafist principality in eastern Syria to put pressure on the Syrian government, but the document warned that this Salafist base could turn into an “Islamic State.”

But such a story would undermine the U.S. government’s “war on terrorism” narrative by revealing that the U.S.-backed strategy actually was risking the expansion of the jihadists’ foothold in Syria. The story was twice rejected by my editors and has received attention almost entirely — if not exclusively — on much-smaller independent news Web sites.

The concerns may be distorted by the writer’s own bias but the reality is that we are all threatened.

Much of this spreading global hysteria and intensifying censorship traces back to Russia-gate. Yet, it remains remarkable that the corporate media has failed so far to prove any significant Russian interference in the U.S. election at all. Nor have the intelligence agencies, Congressional investigations and special prosecutor Robert Mueller. His criminal charges so far have been for financial crimes and lying to federal authorities on topics unrelated to any “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russians to “hack” Democratic emails.

It’s a long article and marred a bit by the writer’s left wing bias but it is worth reading.

In an otherwise well-buried interview between former interim CIA Director Mike Morell, (the temp director following Petraeus ouster used during initial Benghazi cover), there’s an admission by Morell about the politicized Deep State Intelligence leadership targeting candidate Donald Trump.

What this interview tells CTH is that the Intelligence Community, writ large, is on the precipice of massive institutional change -perhaps high level firings of remaining mid level operators and management- and those who participated in the historic politicization are now attempting to shape an explanation.

The CIA was participating in Hillary’s campaign.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 12th, 2017 at 10:37 am and is filed under Big Government, Civil Liberties, Elections.
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8 Responses to “A Pretty Good Explanation of the “Russia did it” story.”

“As a Russian-government-financed English-language news channel, RT also gives a Russian perspective on the news, the way CNN and The New York Times give an American perspective and the BBC a British one”

Perspective is a charitable way of putting it. 2017 is the year that all pretense of perspective has been thrown out the window.

He brings up a good point, however. If RT is a foreign agent, then the NYT, WaPo, and Google are all agents of the Federal Bureaucracy/Deep State.

Everyone uses “public diplomacy” in order to plead their case, push their argument, promote their brand, etc. In the 19th century, the French created Alliance Francaise when it became clear that they had more leverage to influence world affairs through their culture than with military might, especially over their colonial spheres. The Germans engaged in similar activities, but, being more preoccupied with their Volksdeutsche diaspora, they focused on maintaining ties with emigrants in other countries.

We certainly have a long history of it with organizations like Voice of American and Radio Free Europe. Anybody remember Jazz Diplomacy?

The unsettling thing about all this now is that back then we knew where those efforts were coming from. There were agencies and budgets. But now every time a crazy fake news story comes out, we wonder which bureaucrat gave the order to release it? Which international shareholders demanded political results for their investment? Which national defense measure is now getting weaponized to suppress opposition?

I find RT to be a useful news service I get news from. I watch NBC and MSNBC for the belly laughs and I don’t rely on them for anything other than more lies and of course, serious humor.

The world has been turned on it’s head. I now watch Fox for news as well, not that I trust anyone, whereas before, it too was just for the laughs.

Yes the deep state dropped the ball and has been trying to get it back ever since. I do think we all dodged a bullet as Hillary is the deep state, and she was far more likely to get into a war than Trump. It was to the point that the US military was just disobeying Obama, whenever they felt like it. Not good.

The current ‘full court press’, I really don’t know whet that means but I think it’s appropriate, is playing out every day. Mueller is approaching a meltdown as he’s got zip and the humor is epic.

I’ve not looked at it in ages but when al Jazeera first appeared it was obviously superior on some topics to the big Western media outfits. I stopped paying attention to British TV and radio news years ago. When I see youtube clips from the main American TV channels’ news and current affairs shows I chortle when I understand what they are saying.

But I don’t always understand: some of the women “anchors” have accents that manage to be not only ugly but largely incomprehensible. Why such women get hired presumably only the Harvey Weinsteins of that world understand.

I remember watching BBC America on election night 2008. Katty Kay was so deliriously happy I thought she was going to wet her pants. She was much more somber eight years later, as was the rest of the BBC election crew.

The Journal is close to a NeverTrump organization so it is significant that they see this as I do.

Mr. Trump does not have to be paranoid to believe that the indigenous creatures of the Beltway swamp are out to get him. A number of them have put it in writing. This column can only imagine what the two political lawyers Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok said about Mr. Trump when they weren’t creating electronic records of their conversations.

Glenn Reynolds is wondering what if any role the two may have had in turning the surveillance powers of the federal government against the campaign of the man they loathed. Mr. Reynolds is particularly interested in requests made to the federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. He writes on his Instapundit website:

SO I JUST HAD AN INTERESTING EMAIL EXCHANGE WITH THE SPECIAL COUNSEL’S PRESS OFFICE:
Me: I’m hearing from a source that Lisa Page was involved in approving Peter Strzok’s warrant requests to the FISC and possibly elsewhere. Can you confirm or deny if this was the case? And please tell me what her job title and function are in your office. Thanks.
Them (via spokesman Joshua Stueve): Lisa Page, who was an attorney on detail to the Special Counsel’s office, returned to the FBI’s Office of the General Counsel in mid-July.
Me again: Thank you but that doesn’t answer my question. What role did Lisa Page have in the handling of warrant applications, and in particular those involving Peter Strzok?
Them again: I’ll decline to comment further.

In the meantime, law enforcement working for the duly-elected leadership of the country should examine how our government came to direct the surveillance powers of the United States against the party out of power.

Just caught a discussion on NPR this morning about Trump, Mueller, etc. They honestly think Mueller is about to take Trump down for colluding with Russia. Madness. The one tiny comment I heard suggesting there’s even the slightest chance this won’t happen was to say that the voices criticizing Mueller for building such a transparently rabid anti-Trump team would actually undermine any confidence in a report that exonerates Trump. Um, what?